I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving break to spend time with family and friends. I know here in First Grade we have so much to be thankful for.

On November 10th we had some Veterans visit our classroom. They talked to us about proper flag etiquette. We learned many important things about the United States flag. Mrs. Dahlke even learned a thing or two. Later in the week we wrote thank you letters and made an art project for Veterans who are brave and help keep us safe.​Math In Math we are just finishing up Unit 3. The end part of this unit can be challenging as students are trying to solve different types of story problems. If we are having trouble we need to pull it apart, and think to ourselves what do I know, and what am I supposed to find out. If it is still difficult we need to draw out the story problem out to better understand it. Religion We have been discussing how John the Baptist helped people get ready for Jesus. We also talked about Jesus sharing God's love for ALL people, and God watches over and cares for us at all times. We created Advent wreaths. Inside the wreaths we put a manger for baby Jesus. As we wait for baby Jesus, we are going to fill our mangers with good deeds that we do throughout the day. We already have a handful of mangers filled with some good deeds!Science/Social Studies We finished our first unit in Social Studies which was all about families. We started our next Einstein kit which focuses on the Sun. We know the Sun gives us heat and light, and without those we would not be able to survive on Earth. We talked about day and night sky, cold/warm things, and light/dark things. Reading We are studying the short vowel sounds of i, o, and e. We started talking about verbs and adjectives. We are using context clues to help us understand how a character feels, and to help us better comprehend the story. We talked about how different words can have different meanings. We looked at punctuation marks in our stories, and made our voices change to match the punctuation mark. We also practiced putting words in alphabetical order. Writing We are continuing to work on "how to" writing. Before Thanksgiving we took a few days to write some silly Thanksgiving stories like: how to disguise a turkey, how to convince your mom to have pizza for Thanksgiving, how to have the best Thanksgiving feast, and how to help a turkey escape from dinner. ​Important days to remember:December 7th...book orders dueDecember 17th...Christmas concertDecember 18th...books for book exchange and gingerbread nativity items due to Mrs. Dahlke.​December 22...Gingerbread Nativity activity (start right after mass) and Christmas party in the afternoon